


A Cock In Hand (Is Worth Two In The Bush)

by decanthrope



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Birds, F/M, Gratuitous misuse of the word 'cock', Inappropriate Humor, M/M, Midlife Crisis, Narcissa-centric, Soul Bond, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 18:44:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9198290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decanthrope/pseuds/decanthrope
Summary: Draco is in his mid twenties when the stress gets to him and he goes down faster than a sinking ship. It’s completely unexpected, but then again, midlife crises do have the tendency to be unpredictable. For the Malfoys, Potter alwayshasbeen an ultimate cock.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [@castielsburger](http://castielsburger.tumblr.com/) over on [tumblr](http://decanthrope.tumblr.com/), who is fantastic and an amazing artist and helped inspire this! (Go check them out!)

Draco is in his mid twenties when the stress gets to him and he goes down faster than a sinking ship.

It’s completely unexpected, but then again, midlife crises do have the tendency to be unpredictable. That's rather the point.

In a fit of complete and utter madness, he disappears in the early afternoon without warning. This after six months of willful confinement to the Manor.

Narcissa goes into a state of uncontrolled worry that niggles at Lucius so much, he locks himself in his library and refuses to come out until she’s either calmed down naturally, or taken a potion to keep her from fidgeting and otherwise making a nuisance of herself.

Three hours later, Draco returns, and Narcissa couldn’t be happier—could certainly be less confused, but is happy nonetheless.

Draco isn’t alone. For whatever reason it seems only he’s privy to, he’s gone and purchased a chicken. Not a peacock, not an albatross, not any of the birds of paradise or even a Lady Amherst pheasant, but a chicken.

Narcissa is perplexed. She tries to understand, she really does, but no matter what angle she tries to look at it from, it just doesn’t make any sense: she can’t understand what about this plain bird has caught her son’s attention.

As time goes on, it becomes obvious that he doesn’t hold any real affection for the thing, and even though it defecates everywhere and runs wild and scratches their floors and creates more messes than Narcissa truly thinks it’s worth, he refuses to get rid of it. Even though he moans and complains and yells at the silly thing, he won’t hear a word of its removal from the Manor, or even its replacement with something more delicate, something more pleasing to the eye, something less… ordinary.

Narcissa starts to think her son has finally lost it over the course of the next few weeks. Draco takes the chicken with him everywhere. Wherever her son is, the chicken follows, scampering behind him like a puppy, screeching and making all kinds of horrid noises, and, even worse, leaving all kinds of horrid fluids on her nice, pristine floors.

She asks Lucius about his opinion on Draco and his rooster friend one night while they’re getting ready for bed. Lucius gives her a pained look as he slips under the covers.

“Narcissa, it’s nothing to worry about,” he tells her long-sufferingly. “The men in the Malfoy line have always had a special connection with birds. Draco is… respecting his familial heritage.”

Narcissa thinks even he sounds doubtful as he says it.

“Yes, but dear, I don’t think this is quite the same thing as that,” she insists, fussing with the blankets until Lucius shoots her an irritated—but fond—look and covers her hands with his own.

“This is a _phase,”_ he stresses. “He’s experimenting. I’m sure he’ll grow out of it soon enough.”

Narcissa bites her tongue against telling him that he’s a hypocrite and that _his_ thing with peacocks wasn’t just a phase. She doesn’t press the matter after that, and Lucius, grateful of its dropping, rolls over and goes to sleep. Still, she worries. What if Draco really _has_ cracked? His behaviour is worrying. What he has with that chicken isn’t normal. She has her doubts despite Lucius’s words.

What puts pain to it is the fact that Draco seems to have formed some kind of bond with his newest companion that seems to transcend what a relationship between owner and pet ought to be. Several times, she’s caught him alone with the bird, talking to it as if it were another human, even a friend.

It wouldn’t be so bad, really, Narcissa thinks, if it weren’t so terribly unhealthy. She lingers outside the door of the library in the east wing one morning, peering anxiously through the crack in the doors and watches as Draco, once again, is ensconced in a one-sided conversation with the bird.

“You’re a horrid, spiteful little thing. Do you know what you’ve done? Well? Do you?” he peers very seriously at the animal who’s resting noncommittally on the arm of Narcissa’s favourite Victorian carved rosewood arm chair. It has boulle brass and tortoiseshell inlay, is one-of-a-kind, over 100 years old, and costs more than a small fortune alone. Her anxiety ratchets up several notches to see the bird on it, to think about all the damage it might be doing.

From within, Draco blows out an exasperated breath and turns away.

“Of course you bloody well don’t,” he criticizes. “You’re a pea-brained excuse of a bird. You ought to be ashamed. What do you have to say for yourself? Well?”

Draco honestly seems to expect an answer from the thing, and Narcissa curls a hand up against her chest to stop herself from brushing through the doors, pulling him away from the chicken, and gently insisting he see a mind healer.

“That’s what I thought,” Draco’s speaking again, a smug look on his face as he turns away and stoops—no, _kneels_ down on the floor to start cleaning up the corpse of a book that looks to have been shredded, apparently at the bird’s—no, _monster’s_ —talons or beak.

She hears him murmur “bloody _Potter_ ” and has to wonder if this is a sign, the final straw that’s broken the camel’s back, and if she shouldn’t have insisted he seek help before it had all spiralled out of her control.

Before she can do anything, however, the rooster crows loudly and leaps off the chair and onto Draco’s back, climbing him like a tree until it’s perched on his shoulder and pecking at his neck. Narcissa has half a second to think he’s being savaged by the animal before Draco’s hunching his shoulders up to protect his neck and batting the thing off himself, scowling.

“Don’t try to be cute, Potter. I’m angry with you.”

The chicken skitters around, walks back and forth, heckling as it goes. It keeps its beady, crazed-looking eyes on him the whole time, wattle swaying back and forth under its beak. Draco seems to ignore it, and when he’s done picking up the remnants of the book, returns to his chair.

Narcissa is startled out of her vigilance as Lucius comes up behind her, cocking an eyebrow at her. He opens his mouth to speak, and frantically, she slaps her hand over his mouth, hissing at him to be quiet and motioning for him to look through the door in the same gesture. Lucius looks disgruntled, but does so. She wrings her hands while he looks, and when he steps back, peers anxiously into his face.

“It’s unusual,” he admits at last, and Narcissa trembles.

_Unusual_ , she wants to shriek at him. This is beyond unusual! She’s spent the last two months watching her son go completely mad and all Lucius can say is “it’s unusual”?! Narcissa is so tightly strung, she feels like she could snap.

“What do you want me to do about it?” he asks to forestall her actually doing such a thing.

“Talk to him!” she explodes in a whispered shout. Goodness knows she’s tried, and it’s gotten them exactly nowhere.

Lucius looks pained again, but says he will. She stares at him until he blanches, asks “right _now?”_ and is cowed into doing just that under Narcissa’s fierce stare.

The doors are the heavy kind that close slowly due to their weight, so by the time she takes up her position again, spying into the room, she’s missed the beginning of the conversation.

“Your mother is… concerned,” Lucius is saying, and Narcissa curses him under her breath for betraying her like this.

“Why?” Draco asks slowly, like he’s struggling to comprehend _why_ she might have reservations about his befriending a chicken.

Lucius looks uncomfortable at the question.

“She believes your…” he struggles to find the word he wants, and eventually settles on “ _association_ with your cock is verging on an unhealthy dependence.”

Narcissa buries her head in her hands and stifles the groan that tries to escape her. It’s a wonder Lucius was as politically popular as he was in their youth, she thinks. This conversation surely puts him as the least diplomatic person she knows, and considering she knows Pansy Parkinson, that’s a feat. She’s going to conjure worms on his side of the bed tonight—she swears it.

When she looks back up, Draco is about as uncomfortable as she would expect.

“You mean Potter here?” he asks, gesturing to the rooster that’s sitting on his feet.

Lucius’s lip curls, though whether it’s at the name or the animal she can’t tell. She sees the moment he decides to give up on this approach and switches tack.

“Your mother thinks—”

Narcissa shoots a discreet stinging hex at her husband through the doors, grateful that he’s standing sidelong to it, and feels a vicious surge of satisfaction as he twitches and makes a sour face.

“Your mother and _I_ think,” he corrects, stressing his own involvement and somewhat ameliorating her mood. “it might be a good idea to take a break from… Potter.”

Draco’s eyes widen in shock and then narrow suspiciously.

“You’re trying to take Potter away from me,” he realizes. “I won’t have it. I won’t let you. Potter is _mine._ I won’t give him up.”

Lucius backpedals immediately.

“No, no,” he placates, raising his hands in a show of good faith. “Nobody’s going to touch your cock. We just think you need some space from him. At least for a little while. We’re _concerned_ for you, Draco.”

Narcissa is going to have words with Lucius about his choice in locution and appropriateness. If the look on Draco’s face is any indication, he’s similarly horrified by his father’s inability to call Potter anything else than a cock, even if, Narcissa unwillingly admits, that’s precisely what he is, or has been to Draco since their inception as acquaintances.

Draco gets that look he has when he’s feeling particularly mulish, and Narcissa resigns herself to an uphill battle.

“I’m not letting you take Potter away. He’s _my_ cock… bird… rooster—whatever!” he splutters in increasing aggravation at Lucius’s expression to hearing this, and carries on: “And I won’t let you remove him from me!”

“We just want what’s best for you!” Lucius erupts at last, and Draco’s face goes blank.

“And you think he isn’t.”

Narcissa feels the chill in her son’s voice most acutely.

“You must understand what this looks like, Draco. You running around with a chicken… it’s not normal. Let me take the bird. We can get you something else if you really insist. One of my peahens has just had a clutch: you can have your pick of the chicks.”

Draco glares at his father angrily and stubbornly sets his jaw.

“I’m not getting rid of Potter,” he says mutinously, and scooping up the chicken, who squawks indignantly at such rough treatment, turns to storm out of the library.

Narcissa makes a sound of surprise and throws herself away from the door, sprinting down the corridor and ducking through the first door that makes itself apparent with terror thrumming in her veins. A moment later, Draco is storming past, muttering irately to his chicken.

Narcissa feels as though they’ve just made the whole situation worse instead of better. She stays hidden until Draco’s footsteps have faded from hearing completely, and then a little longer as she contemplates what to do next.

* * *

There really isn’t anything for it she decides—the best thing they can do is watch in silence while Draco coddles and abuses his chicken in turn. He seems to cycle between affection and churlishness over the silly thing.

Over the next few weeks, it feels like the bird is everywhere she looks, and wherever it is, Draco’s not far behind. She’s treated to the sight of him pontificating loudly and at length to the bloody rooster.

She doesn’t think she’ll ever quite get used to the sight of it riding around on top of Draco’s head like a glorified hat that moves and squawks and, apparently, _shits_ on Draco freely. This last part she discovers one day when Draco runs past, screaming bloody murder after the rooster that seems determined to bob and weave its way to safety.

“I’m going to roast you alive!” her son screams as he dashes by. His hair is plastered to the back of his head wetly and there are dark stains down his collar and back. She stifles a gasp where she’s pruning the rose garden, both appalled and macabrely amused in the same turn as more murderous threats of what Draco is going to do to the chicken when he captures it disrupt her peaceful garden.

That night, Draco has a new haircut and they end up having coq au vin for dinner. Potter is suspiciously absent, Draco won’t say a word about him through the meal, and Narcissa doesn’t touch hers for fear that they really _are_ eating her son’s beloved pet.

Two hours after dinner, Draco joins her in the library, a tea towel slung over one shoulder and rooster dangling uselessly by its feet in his grasp.

Over the top of her book, she watches Draco manhandle the bird this way and that as he tries to figure out how to fasten the tea towel into a diaper.

She resigns herself to the fact that her son really _is_ going insane, and that she might also be going around the bend, considering she barely even twitches when Potter escapes Draco’s hold and starts clawing at the bookcase.

“Potter!” Draco berates irately, yanking the chicken back into his lap. “We _discussed_ this! You agreed to behave yourself, so be _have!”_

The rooster clucks broodingly, looking—dare she say it—resentful, but nonetheless settles in Draco’s lap. Narcissa spends the rest of the night observing them subtly, and though she tries to deny it, there does seem to be something almost otherworldly about the creature.

A chill runs up her spine when she catches Potter staring at her, and she hastily looks away.

There’s something unnatural about that chicken.

* * *

 

Narcissa gives in. Potter is here to stay.

Draco has had a midlife crisis and come out of it less intact than before it came. Lucius is sweeping it all under the rug and pretending all is well and Narcissa… Narcissa vacillates between wanting to laugh and cry hysterically on a daily basis.

The only thing _to_ do is give in, accept the reality, and drown herself in expensive booze.

At the very least, she comforts herself, her family isn’t quite as bad as it could be. Draco certainly could have gone off during his crisis and married Pansy. Thank goodness for small mercies, a rooster is nothing by comparison.

She gets used to Potter with all the alacrity she’s in possession of, and comes to expect the chicken’s presence in her life.

Draco lets the thing sleep in his bed, and if he can submit to the horrors of what that must entail, she can tolerate seeing it every night at the dinner table. If she drinks enough, that is.

* * *

 

Funnily enough, it’s Draco who starts it.

“Don’t you think he’s looking a little peaky?” he asks one afternoon five months in.

Narcissa turns from preparing her roses for winter.

Potter _does_ look a sight: his normally immaculate tail is droopy, his eyes seem to bulge out of his head more than they usually do, and there seems to be a general green sort of tinge to him. There’s a particularly manic look in his eyes, she thinks. All in all, Potter looks diseased.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” she tries to assure him, but the seed has been planted. The damage has been done.

That night, Narcissa doesn’t sleep. She stares at the dark ceiling until the sound of her husband snoring besides her feels grating and insensitive.

“Wake up!” she hisses, and smacks Lucius’s chest until he starts awake, mumbling about goat soup of all things.

“Lucius,” she says. “Do you ever worry about Draco?”

Lucius groans.

“This again? I thought we’d settled it, Narcissa. Our son is insane. End of story.”

Narcissa kicks him under the blanket and he jumps, changes his answer, resigned.

“No. I don’t worry for him. Why?”

She doesn’t answer that.

“What about Potter?”

There’s a silence.

“Potter? Do I worry about _Potter?”_ Lucius laughs until she’s forced to assault him again. “No. Why would I worry about a damned chicken?”

Narcissa holds her breath, counts to three, and then doesn’t answer that, either.

“What do we do when Potter dies?”

She can practically hear Lucius’s eyeroll in the dark.

“Celebrate,” is his immediate, callous response, and Narcissa smacks his shoulder halfheartedly.

“It’s just… Draco is so attached, and you know how he can be. He doesn’t take separation well. What if Potter dies and he’s inconsolable?” she wonders.

“For Merlin’s sake, woman! Draco is _twenty-seven years old!_ He’ll be fine.”

“But what if he’s not?” she presses, twisting the blanket under her hands as she worries. “I worry about him. I just don’t want to see him hurt, Lucius.”

Lucius takes her hand in his and rolls over so they’re pressed together, his cheek on her shoulder.

“Draco will be _fine,_ Narcissa,” he tells her resolutely, gathering her up into his arms. “Potter’s young. He’s not going anywhere for a good long while.”

She wants to believe Lucius, wants to have as much confidence as he does, but it’s hard.

Lucius starts snoring again, right against her ear, and reluctantly, she allows it to lull her to sleep, too.

Potter goes missing 3 weeks later. There’s no sign of him for three long days in which Draco scours the Manor frantically, tearing at his hair and muttering nonsensically. He seems crazed in his worried grief.

She can’t help but think this was forewarned, that there were omens, and, bitterly, that she was right.

Before Draco can submit himself to the tragic end to his new best friend and spiral even farther out of her control, Narcissa rushes out to buy another rooster and releases it on the Manor grounds. She hopes Draco doesn’t notice the difference, though she braces herself for impact all the same.

* * *

Narcissa enters her favourite tea room and finds it already occupied.

She’s halfway through an apology and explanation that she didn’t know they were expecting company when she realizes it’s Potter.

Real Potter—not chicken Potter.

To her bemusement, he looks entertained at her stuttered and mangled excuse, and waves her in to sit like _she’s_ the visitor here.

Stunned, and for lack of a better option, she does sit.

It’s clear Potter is in control here, is the one with all the cards in his hands, and for once, Narcissa doesn’t know how to act.

“How was America?” she asks when she’s settled.

Potter smiles deviously, and she’s put off her guard.

“I imagine it’s lovely,” he says, and has the audacity to laugh at her confused expression. “Is that where they’ve said I went? Do you believe everything you read in the Daily Prophet, Mrs. Malfoy? You shouldn’t.”

“If not America, then where?” she asks, and watches Potter smile disconcertingly.

“I wanted to thank you for your hospitality,” he says instead of answering her.

She stares at him blithely, unsure what to make of this man in her house.

Narcissa doesn’t get the chance to say anything in response to that, because Draco’s throwing the doors open, looking completely dishevelled and frantic.

“Have you seen Po—” he starts to ask, and then sights Potter. He sags against the doorway, as though his legs are no longer sufficient to hold him up. Then, he composes himself and stalks into the room so he’s standing in front of their guest.

“You’re back, and the first thing you do is come see my _mother?”_ he asks vexedly. Though his back is to her, Narcissa knows her son—has no trouble picturing the irritated, pouty look he’s no doubt sporting.

“Of course,” Harry says levelly. “To show my appreciation for the hospitality.”

Draco makes an irritated, wounded sound in his throat and advances harshly.

Narcissa prepares to jump into the middle of whatever altercation is sure to arise, but instead of going for Potter’s throat, Draco collapses on him, throwing his arms around Potter’s neck and all but crawling into his lap.

“I should murder you,” she hears him say angrily against Potter’s chest, but he makes no move to get off or do any such thing.

“You’d miss me too much,” Potter says confidently, stroking down his back.

Draco makes a splenetic sound—or maybe it’s affectionate. Narcissa doesn’t have a lot of experience around her son and Potter, and even less when it appears he and Potter are… what? Friends? More?

There’s the crux of the matter: Narcissa has no idea at all what to make of their relationship.

She shifts in her chair and is rewarded with Potter looking over and catching her gaze. He smiles wanly and turns to whisper something to Draco, who tenses, but eventually releases Potter from the death grip and turns to face her.

“Like I said, I wanted to thank you for your geniality. You’ve been very considerate.”

Narcissa doesn’t know what to say, and so, switches her gaze to Draco beseechingly.

Draco mutters under his breath and scowls, but eventually elaborates.

“Potter’s been staying here the last few months.”

Narcissa raises a skeptical brow.

“I think I would have noticed if The Saviour was under my roof,” she says dryly, and Draco scowls again, but Potter steals her attention by fidgeting uncomfortably.

“Well, I wasn’t exactly myself,” he says, avoiding her eyes.

Narcissa blinks slowly.

“This prat got himself cursed,” Draco interjects, snickering. “Soul-bound to a chicken of all things,” he says condescendingly, and Potter immediately starts an argument over Draco’s phrasing.

It becomes apparent that left to their own devices, they’ll keep sniping back and forth forever, so she clears her throat pointedly. They turn back to her, sheepish.

“Then every time you had Potter the chicken with you…”

“It was me,” Potter finishes grimly.

What a turn of events. This is certainly the last thing she expected to have happen, though in the grand scheme of things, it may not be the most unusual thing to have ever happened. Then again… Potter _did_ spend half a year as a chicken.

Narcissa pulls herself together and realizes Draco is peering at her nervously. He tries to hide it, but she’s his mother and sees the anxiety under the surface. Apparently, so does Potter, because he squeezes Draco’s waist comfortingly.

“And how long has all of this been going on?” she gestures to how Draco’s sitting half on Potter and half on the chair, squashed together and not attempting violent acts in her sitting room.

She’s rewarded with Potter’s averted gaze and blush.

“Just a few months before all this—” Draco gestures around the room, “—happened.”

Well, at least she can lay her worries about Draco having fallen in love with a bird to rest.

“I figure if I can put up with him as a foul, brainless, pathetic excuse of a farm animal, I can put up with him as a human. You’re still a cock, though.”

“Cheers,” Potter says blandly, rolling his eyes at Draco’s smirk.

Narcissa doesn’t understand it at all. She can’t see how it works between them, but Draco looks happy, and that’s all she can really ask for, she supposes. It’s such a relief to know her son isn’t mental and doesn’t need to be committed.

“Darling,” she interrupts their bantering. “You couldn’t have told us what was going on?” That Potter was, well, Potter?”

Draco blinks at her blankly.

“I thought it was obvious,” he says, and Narcissa purses her lips. Upon seeing her look, his face smooths over into an expression of hauteur. “You and father were so determined to thinking I was mad, neither of you ever bothered to ask for the explanation.”

Narcissa feels her back straighten at that, but before she can start on him, Potter is throwing his head back and laughing like this is the funniest thing in the world to him.

Draco shares a confused, somewhat put out glance with her, and they both turn to stare at Potter.

“Ah, sorry, sorry,” he chokes out when he sees their scrutiny, wiping tears from his eyes and wheezing. “It’s just… all of those conversations make so much more sense now. Mr. Malfoy—” he gasps out, and then succumbs to laughter again.

Beside him, Draco goes pale and looks queazy as he stares at Potter in horror.

It’s enough to make Narcissa smile faintly, recalling her husband’s dramatics and the ironic facetiousness of the conversation in hindsight.

She supposes this might just be the most ridiculous thing that’s happened to any of them after all, and the stunned look on her son’s face is enough to transform her smile into faint laughter that has Draco whipping his head around to stare at her in betrayal.

He crosses his arms over his chest and says petulantly, “I don’t see that this situation is humorous at _all_ ,” which only sets Potter off more fervently.

Draco sulks and Narcissa is amused in spite of herself.

* * *

 

Despite Potter being returned to his rightful body, Narcissa still spots a chicken running around the Manor, Draco hot on its heels in pursuit, screaming bloody murder at it and calling it Potter.

She would be concerned that whatever Potter has gotten mixed up in has somehow come undone again if Potter, fully human, hadn’t shown up and looked on beside her in pained resignation at the scene. Narcissa is somewhat confused as to where the chicken has come from and exactly why it’s around.

“Please tell me we didn’t look that barmy when I was… you know…”

Narcissa smiles peaceably at him, tucks his hand into the crook of her arm and very tellingly doesn’t answer.

Potter groans just as Draco approaches, raving rooster under arm.

“What?” he asks defensively, shielding the chicken from sight with his body when he sees their questioning faces. “I like him.”

Narcissa has nothing to say about that, and it seems neither does Potter, except, miserably: “The press is going to have a field day with this.”

Immediately, Narcissa resolves to keep Lucius as far away from reporters as possible on this matter.

He’s bound to make a mess of it all with his inability to call a rooster anything but a cock—even if that is precisely what Potter is. Linguistically speaking.


End file.
